Page 57 - Afrika Must Unite

42 AFRICA MUST UNITE

industrial concerns in the Congo. Through interlocking
directorates, this company is linked with For mini ere and certain
diamond interests which, together with De Beers, the great
South African mining company, control the Angola Diamond
Company with mines in the Luanda province. This company is a
state within a state. It possesses a prospecting monopoly over
five-sixths of Angola and a labour conscription monopoly over
most of the Luanda province, one-third the size of Ghana. One
half of its profit goes to the state, the other half to the private
shareholders. No wonder it can influence policy whichever way
it likes and holds in its hands the lives of the Africans of the
Luanda province.
For these economic reasons, Portugal can count on heavy
backing from vested financial interests throughout the world.
H er position in m aintaining her colonial dictatorship is, in
addition, immensely strengthened by her membership of the
N orth Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.).
It remains to be seen what the effect will be of the vote in the
United Nations General Assembly urging Portugal to prepare
for self-government in Angola. Experience has led us not to place
too much hope in resolutions and votes, but to rely more on
positive action. The people of Angola themselves must provide
the motive power, and we, the independent African States, must
do all we can to help them.
The struggle for independence in the Portuguese colonies has
come relatively late partly because of the exceptionally poor
state of education there. In M ozambique, the 1950 census re­
vealed 99 per cent illiteracy. In 1954, out of 6 million Africans
only 5,000 were in prim ary schools, 73 in secondary schools, and
42 in industrial training classes. Portuguese officials have
boasted that white rule would last longer in their colonial
territories, because education has been deliberately held back.
An official of the Education Ministry in Lourengo M arques has
been quoted as saying: ‘Frankly we do not want many educated
natives, until they have an appropriate social background. They
have no place to go. They become dissatisfied. W hat we want
here is a stable society, a stable state. So we move very, very
slowly.51
1 John Gunther: Inside Africa, Hamish Hamilton 1955, p. 581.